Butterfly+Garden

Butterfly Garden
This garden is hopefully going to be planted this year in May. We are thinking about planting this garden along with a couple of small "pilot" vegetable gardens. Next year we hope to plant additional vegetable gardens so that we can donate the food to local food banks. Plans are in the works to have administrators, teachers, parents, and students maintain the gardens over the summer. Come back in early spring to see if we have made any progress.


 * // All of the information below this point was from the 2009-10 school year. Unfortunately we decided to wait one year to start a butterfly garden. //**
 * // Although we did not complete the project last year, our students had a great time and learned a lot about planting seeds, caring for seedlings. //**
 * // They also did a great job researching the importance and benefits of planting a butterfly garden as well as information about all of the different //**
 * // types of plants to include in a butterfly garden. //**

Seed planting day. Club students planted over 1000 seeds today. The seeds and seedlings will be cared for by the club members for the next few months.

Species of plants that we will be growing in class include: //Cassia fasciculata// - Partridge Pea //Dahlia// Mix - Zinnia //Gaillardia pulchella// - Indian Blanket //Tithonia// - Mexican Sunflower //Echinacea purpurea// - Purple Coneflower //Asclepias curassavica// - Tropical Milkweed //Eupatorium purpureum// - Joe Pye Weed //Asclepias tuberosa// - Butterfly Weed //Asclepias speciosa// - Showy Milkweed //Asclepias syriaca// - Common Milkweed //Asclepias incarnata pulchra// - Swamp Milkweed (subspecies) //Asclepias incarnata incarnata// - Swamp Milkweed (subspecies) //Asclepias cordifolia// - Purple Milkweed //Asclepias curassavica// - Tropical Milkweed //Asclepias eriocarpa// - Indian Milkweed //Asclepias purpurascens// - Eastern Purple Milkweed //Asclepias sullivantii// - Prairie Milkweed

The seeds that needed to be cold stratified have been treated and placed in the refrigerator here at school. The seeds will be checked periodically and we should be able to plant them around the end of January.

We have ordered seeds for the butterfly garden. We will grow the plants throughout late winter and early spring to be planted in the butterfly garden. Growing the plants ourselves will greatly reduce the cost of the project.